One Reader's Ramblings

**DISCLAIMER**  I debated for quite awhile about whether to post this because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  Finally I had my teenage daughter read it and she doesn't think it should upset the teens in the audience so with her blessing, here goes...

There are some books that when you finish you can’t WAIT to read the sequel (and if it isn’t written yet you start to understand my pet peeve a little better).   There are some that you wish intensely for a sequel that will never be (because, even though the story is complete, you just aren’t ready to leave it behind).   And then there are some that have a sequel and yet when you get to the end (no matter how good the story was) you have a completed feeling about the story and have no desire to read the next book.

This is one of the more interesting premises for a series I have run across in some time.   Set in a post-apocalyptic time it follows the story of a young girl who never knew she was anything but ordinary… come to find out she’s the savior of them all.

Life is busy.  It doesn't matter who you talk to, or how much they try to live simply if people are honest when you ask "How are you doing?" They will say something along the lines of crazy, hectic, or busy at best.   If you are single and live alone, you still have work projects, grocery shopping cleaning, budgeting, etc.  If like me, you are a mom of school-age kids you can add to all that, getting the kids ready for school, helping with homework, volunteering at the school, and THEN if the kids are in a sport or after-school activity the list just gets insane. 

Every book has to have a setting, characters, and plot... Sorry, but having a daughter in 7th grade doing book reports has to rub off on me a little... So let's start there.  Setting: New York.   Characters: Nephilium, Angels, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and even the Fairy people (with a few "mundanes" thrown in here and there).  Plot: Shadowhunters/Nephium hunt demons and keep the peace between “Downworlders”, like vampires and werewolves, with lots and lots of battles thrown in (obviously I'm WAY oversimplifying, but you get the idea).

So the last time I wrote I was bemoaning the fact that I had nothing to write passionately about.  You MAY have noticed that since then I skipped a week of writing... Yes, it was due to the same issue.  But today I have something I am very passionate about.

Do writers always have a story in their head?   Do they always have something they could write about? Even when they have writer’s block, is the story still there?   Under the surface?   Waiting to be written?   These are the questions that fill my head because I know I am “supposed” to write a blog post, but I have nothing to write about.   

This book is so hard to categorize.   I mean, yes, it goes under werewolves, but as far as good, bad, or meh…. That’s a whole other issue.   The writing was TERRIBLE!   If it hadn’t been free… AND I hadn’t been in a hurry to find something to read while sitting in a hospital waiting room there is NO way, after reading the sample, I would have clicked “buy.”     

I love finding a book that I’m excited to write about!     This is just such a book!   It has everything I look for in a story—dynamic interesting characters, fascinating and complex plot (almost too complex at one point… but more on that later), and even a great setting.   

Could there be anyone more naive?   I doubt it.   Honor goes from being freaked out and thinking the new guy is some sort of stalker to dating him in just a couple page turns.   And honestly he fit the stalker part better.  

Wow!   So last post I mentioned vampires would be my next book and, ironically, that’s what I read.   Why do I say ironically?   Because I already had the book on my Kindle, but I hadn’t paid any attention to what kind of book it was until I opened it and really didn’t realize it was about vampires until I was pretty well into it.   Even more ironic, when I went back to look at the book description (checking to see if it was a subconscious thing) from it I would have guessed werewolves but not vampires… turns out it’s both. 

Recently, while on vacation, I ventured away from YA Paranormal and back to an older genre: Mystery.   The main reason for the change is that I was going to be without wi-fi and therefore had to get as many books as possible on my Kindle before we left.   This led me to search out the public library’s e-book lending system.   I’m sure there are YA paranormal to be lent… but I couldn’t find them.   So mystery it was.

For someone who reads paranormal non-stop, you’d think nothing would faze me when it comes to the stories in books… NOT SO.   What honestly never ceases to amaze me is how many times I have this exact same internal dialog while reading a new book—it goes like this:   “Wow, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever read!   Wait.   I always think that when reading a new book.   Yea, but this one really is weird.” (I obviously have short-term memory loss as well, right?)

This post is for all my loving friends and family who follow my blog despite their disinterest in the Paranormal Genre.

My best friend has her Master’s Degree in Creative Writing.   Let me tell you, that’s a lot of class hours spent on how to write!   And according to her, every single professor she had talked at length about the importance of “tension” in a story.   She said they all emphasized the importance of something in the story to “make the reader want to turn the page.”   SO, here’s my question (and one she can’t remember ever discussing in school) – is there such a thing as TOO much tension?

There are some books you can’t wait to tell the world about… there are others you don’t want to admit you read… and for each one in either of these categories, there are hundreds more that fall somewhere in between.   

There is only one way to start this post and it is to quote Ramona Quimby Age 8 :   “I can’t believe I read the whole thing!”

Have you ever finished a book and been just left with:   “WOW!”   I just finished Beloved the last of the Crystor Series by C.K. Bryant and… WOW!   This was such a highly anticipated book for me and I was a little leery because of other books that I looked forward to which have been a disappointment.   This was NOT the case here!

 I have to start by saying that I have wanted to read this for some time.   I found it over a year ago and was intrigued but didn’t want to pay over $6 on a book I hadn’t heard of before.   I kept going back to it though and eventually I saw it somewhere in paperback.   That made me realize that it must also be at the library… aha! I didn’t have to pay a dime.   So off I went to my public library.

These books are fantastic and there are 4 main reasons that I want to touch on to back this up.

Have you ever felt like you had been baited and hooked by a book series?   That is exactly how I felt about The Mystic Series .   I read book #1 in the series, Descension, and it was SO good.   I loved every single one of the characters and I couldn’t wait to give it a fantastic review, but before I did I started book #2, Impassion, and that review faded fast.   

To "plagiarize" means to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own to use (another's production) without crediting the source to commit literary theft to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source¹ Maybe that’s a little harsh for the book I just finished… but it was what I was thinking most of the time I was reading.   It honestly wasn’t that the story was exactly the same, but the sentiments, dialog, and descriptive passages just felt SO familiar.

So the next book I found to read over Spring Break was SO much better.   

Over Spring Break I read a couple of new books.   Even though I’m not in school anymore having kids in school means that Spring Break still marks a significant change in our schedule… this year it meant vacation to see relatives and lots of good reading time in the car.  

So I started Soul of Flame before it was even released.   I was one of the lucky few that Rebecca Ethington gave an advanced release copy to, wahoo!!!   So why am I just now writing about it, almost a month later?  

Last week a tragedy occurred in my reading life (ok, so tragedy might be overstating things just a bit).   I dropped my Kindle and - despite being in the same leather case it has been dropped in before - it died, never to be read again.   This is all it does now.   RIP my friend.

Sometimes you read a book and you just can’t put your finger on why it… for lack of a better word, sucks.   I mean the plot is interesting, the characters are ok and yet it’s just boring!

I love my little corner of the house.  It has everything I could need.  My comfy recliner, where I can put my feet up.  A light to read by – very important since I have the old-school Kindle with no light (and love it that way).  There is my little table to hold a glass of wine, the candy of the day, and a box of tissues – for cold weather runny noses, of course… not because I cry at my books.  Year-round there’s a warm blanket and in the winter a space heater nearby.  It’s not usually as neat as the picture shows, but I’m not going to take a picture to put on the internet without tidying up a bit! What’s your comfort space like?  Maybe it’s not even for reading, but you still love to relax there.    

I tried to find something new to read this week, and I’m stumped.   I can’t find anything new that seems worth the time… so I decided instead to re-read The Imdalind Series .   Partly because I didn’t feel like searching anymore and partly because I need to be ready for the release of Soul of Flame in less than a month **YEA** and I want to have ALL the details from the first 3 books fresh in my mind.   However, I wasn’t prepared to have my heart ripped out in the first few chapters of Kiss of Fire .

So there is a reason that Peeves in Harry Potter has the name that he does.   He strikes at the most inopportune times and is annoying every single time.   My pet peeve does the same.   What is it you might ask… books with cliffhangers where the next book isn’t written yet!   UGH!

So based on previous posts you know I like to read in the car line waiting to pick up my kids from school.   Well, the other day I was doing just that when BAM!   No, I didn’t get hit or hit anyone else… I read something that knocked me off my feet and I almost started crying, and then how do you make it home with tears in your eyes?

Pretty much anyone who knows me (or has read this blog from the beginning) knows that I love to read pretty much anywhere…   the doctor’s office, the car line picking up kids at school, waiting for water to boil (please make sure that you read my rules about this one {HERE} before attempting).   So why am I totally baffled when I go into people’s houses and they have reading material provided in the bathroom?

I offered to share this announcement for Rebecca Ethington and she sent me an pre-made file OR a bunch of pics so I could put all this info out there myself... well, her file is SO much better looking than what I usually do we'll just go with her's *grins* So here it is!!  The moment we've all been waiting for...

So a while back I started out this blog post {HERE} with the sentence “Finally I finished something worth writing home (or in this case: a blog post) about.”   Maybe it’s funny, but I wanted to start this post the same way (see how I got that in there without it being completely the same?).